Peace On Earth

How long it seemed, the waiting for Christmas to come after the Thanksgiving holiday was over. I pored over the Sears catalog, wishing for every toy soldier set in there. My belief in Santa long gone, and I was turning eleven on the 20th of December. I wouldn’t expect much this year. I’ve got a baby sister in the house now, so there will be less money to spread around.
Snow falls early this December, even though it’s warm at the beginning of the month. I won’t get straight A’s at the end of the marking period. I slip to a B in English and Arithmetic, so I guess I’m paying more attention to TV and the coming holiday.
Who among us can concentrate with the promise of snow and presents on the way?
I really hope I’ll get the Marx Civil War play set this year. Paul LaPann has it, and it’s amazing. Confederates and Yankees, cannons and a stone bridge, and figures of Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant, and a tin lithographed southern mansion. That’s for me!
Milton Bradley has another American Heritage game out. Broadside, a naval battle board game, so I’ll ask for that. Carl wants the Beany and Cecil game that has a puppet of Cecil. It’s one of those ones that talk when you pull a string on the side of it. Cecil gives you spoken clues as you navigate around the board.
The toy ads are coming fast and furious, and everything looks great on TV. How to decide? What to choose?
My birthday comes, and snow comes with it, and it’s looking more and more like we’ll be having a white Christmas this year. I get my one big birthday gift from Mom and Dad, and yep, you guessed it, I get another West German Rixe bicycle. This one is black, with gull-wing handlebars and one of those mouse-trap clamp things on the back. It looks fast. It’s a 26 inch, and I can’t wait for spring and warm weather, though I know I’ll go through the same frustrations trying to ride it.
We’ve got a lot of Christmas cards this year, strung along the wall of the living room, rows and rows of them, a proud reminder of all the friends and family we have.
Mom will paint a jolly Santa on the picture window in the living room, and Dad will string a few lights on the bushes and across the front of the house.
We get snow for Christmas, and all is well with me and my family in our little house on the corner in Woodbury Heights.
A white Christmas, presents, a new bike and time off from school, and best of all my dog Whee-Zee is still with us.
Still time for that Christmas nap on the living room rug girl.
Still time for us to snore.